The universe is a quantum computer

WHAT is the universe made of? Matter or energy? Particles or strings? According to physicist Vlatko Vedral's appealing new book, it is made, at bottom, of information.

In other words, if you break the universe into smaller and smaller pieces, the smallest pieces are, in fact, bits.

With this theme in mind, Vedral embarks on an exuberant romp through physics, biology, philosophy, religion and even personal finance. By turns irreverent, erudite and funny, Decoding Reality is - by the standard of books that require their readers to know what a logarithm is - a ripping good read.
A bit is the tiniest unit of information. It represents the
distinction between two possibilities: yes or no, true or false, zero or
one. The word "bit" also refers to the physical system representing
that information: in your computer's hard drive, for example, a bit is
registered by a minuscule magnet whose north pole can point up or down.

Any system that has two distinct states can act as a bit - even an
individual elementary particle: "electron over here" represents zero,
"electron over there" represents one. When the electron goes from here
to there, the bit flips.

At this smallest of scales,
however, the universe is governed by the famously weird laws of quantum
mechanics. Computers that operate using quantum bits (or qubits), such
as those stored on individual electrons, inherit this weirdness: bits
can read 0 and 1 simultaneously, and quantum computers can solve
problems classical computers cannot.

Over the last two decades, a
flourishing field of quantum information and computation has generated a
wealth of experimental and theoretical tests of information processing
at the quantum scale. Vedral is one of the luminaries in this field.

In
Decoding Reality, Vedral argues that we should regard the entire
universe as a gigantic quantum computer. Wacky as that may sound, it is
backed up by hard science. The laws of physics show that it is not only
possible for electrons to store and flip bits: it is mandatory. For
more than a decade, quantum-information scientists have been working to
determine just how the universe processes information at the most
microscopic scale.

Starting in 2000, in a series of papers
published in Nature, Science and Physical Review
Letters, my colleagues and I were able to quantify the exact
information processing capacity of the entire universe. Indeed, many of
Vedral's arguments closely, and no doubt unconsciously, follow those of
my 2006 book Programming the Universe. Unwitting rediscovery is
the sincerest form of flattery.

In general, the parts of Decoding
Reality that deal with quantum physics and quantum information are
the least original. Moreover, for an expert in the field, Vedral makes
inexplicable and significant errors: for example, he misreports by more
than 20 orders of magnitude the well-known figure for how many bits of
information can be contained in the universe.

More
rewarding are the sections in which Vedral leaves the confines of his
own discipline to speculate and expound on the role of information in
biology, finance and philosophy. For example, his exposition of the
relationship between computation and genetic information processing in
living systems possesses a clarity and elan that rarely appears in
scientific writing for a general audience.

While it might
not make you rich - despite what Vedral coyly suggests - his treatment
of the relationship between investment theory and information theory is a
pleasure. Finally, Vedral holds out hope for those readers who wish to
entertain the notion of a relationship between the paradoxes of quantum
mechanics and Vedic philosophy.

Not since David Deutsch's
magisterial The Fabric of Reality has a physicist given us such a
wide-ranging and intriguing picture of how quantum mechanics constructs
the world.

Book InformationDecoding Reality by Vlatko VedralOxford University Press$29.95/£16.99

Sounds like a good read. However, if it is true that the Universe is a giant quantum computer then; who built it, are there an infinite number of them, what are they calculating and why? I look forward to the follow up book where theses questions are no doubt answered.

Nigel
on March 22, 2010 4:38 PM

But I thought life was like a box of chocolates... certainly much simpler.

Runi
on March 22, 2010 4:39 PM

Graham, those are good questions.

In the trilogy "My Big TOE" the physicist Thomas Campbell answers those questions and many more in a "Theory of Everything". I recommend you look at it :)

There's a lecture on youtube, excellent material.

hellblade
on March 22, 2010 4:56 PM

We already know what the result of this universal calculation will be - 42.

Kolvorok
on March 22, 2010 5:17 PM

The universe is a quantum computer? Hella sneaky trojan horses we are!

Yossarian
on March 22, 2010 5:18 PM

Mac or PC?

akka69
on March 22, 2010 5:19 PM

If the Universe is made of pure information, then "harry potter"-like magic is possible : altering reality simply by changing information.

Just because ( if Vedral is right ) the universe is made of information, doesn't mean there are no rules to how that information is manipulated. Conventional computers, too, manipulate information but there are fundamental limits to what you can do ( eg, Turing's Halting Problem ). There are similar limits for manipulation of quantum information.

Allen
on March 22, 2010 6:48 PM

Along these lines... if I understand this article, you may also enjoy the similarly themed Novel, "The End of Mr. Y" by Scarlett Thomas

V
on March 22, 2010 7:39 PM

The universe as a quantum computer, it can definetely be thought in that form. After all, in reality we have two possible states and combinations of these multiple grades of division are the complexities that are life. There is most definetely a driver to the universe, the drive produces there plus not-there, divergence of neutrality. In a sense, a good anology for the universe is a quantum computer, quantum computing develops virtual reality, quantum reality are atoms acting as atoms move and interact naturaly producing reality, with quantum computing reality is imaged as real but is imaginary. Quantum physics is the study of atoms, computers are divergences of drive, provide atoms required for reality and inject force, inject the program into atoms, quantum computing drives atomic states, atoms subjected to force change states, the atoms themselves work around neutral states, none and one, 0 & 1. Atoms are centralized, there are infinite zero and ones about a systematic singularity. With quantum computing we create a virtual reality, virtual world, identical in all aspects to the real one, within itself is real, it is a real world sytematicaly, if we induce the question why the world will search for its own existence, reality. Quantum physics is the study of atoms, the way atoms act under forces pressures, quantum computing is harvesting its power, using the different states of matter to calculate the zero one code, we calculate with many zero and ones at one time. One atom can differentiate on an infitely axial system. We cannot calculate infinite no and yeses at one time, for a few reasons, one of them is that we don't have infinite yes and no questions, one of them is that we calculate by force, yes an atom is infinite in yes and noes about the singularity but to calculate states we induce force or drive atomicaly, so the infinity about the singularity is the state of the atom neutraly, calculation of state is induced with em force, the drive of reality, quantum computing is the power of God. We are atoms. If we can take atoms and change their states by drive force we can create a systematic reality virtual to our system. To an atom it is real, all else is unreal, an atom knows not what it is that the full system is doing. Inducing states of matter is easy to us even now. There is just one aspect that's missing, and without that one it's zero.

Fill
on March 22, 2010 7:55 PM

Seems mostly like word-play. *I* think the stuff in the universe is like ingredients in a recipe, therefore we're all living inside a giant frosted cake! :')

@Graham from March but mostly @hellblade; 42 indeed - but that's not the issue. The question is far more interesting...

Travis
on March 22, 2010 9:56 PM

Watch out for malwares and viruses.
I do not wish to be formatted.

Guimo
on March 23, 2010 2:01 AM

The answer is 42

Ben Thompson
on March 23, 2010 2:34 AM

@hellblade - the answer is us

craig
on March 23, 2010 2:47 AM

sounds like they may have been closer to the truth in hitch hikers guide to the galaxy than anyone thought.

Cliff Huber
on March 23, 2010 4:14 AM

Perhaps the Universe is self-energizing; thus, self-sustaining as in the death and birth of galaxies et al.

Ugly American
on March 23, 2010 4:24 AM

There have been various philosophical conjectures along these lines since antiquity but there was at least 1 serious theory in the modern sense that predates the books and papers sited above.

"In 1967 Zuse also suggested that the universe itself is running on a grid of computers (digital physics); in 1969 he published the book Rechnender Raum (translated into English as Calculating Space). This idea has attracted a lot of attention, since there is no physical evidence against Zuse's thesis. Edward Fredkin (1980s), Juergen Schmidhuber (1990s), Stephen Wolfram (A New Kind of Science) and others have expanded on it."

You need to read
the Least Particle Theory which postulates the Universe is a geat sea of energy. The energy is particulate in form.
the particles of energy are quanta of energy. We term them "quens". The quens have ten governing properties (dimensions?)

The Vedas have postulated a similar concept for many thousands of years: matter is comprised of energy (a reality only recognised by modern science in the last century), energy is comprised of mind (information) and mind emanates from (for want of a better translation) spirit.

Lloyd and Deutsch are spot on in articulating how reality works. The Fabric of Reality is such an important book on stating the physicality of computing while Lloyd states how quantum drives the multiverse. No doubt I will buy this book.

Anon
on March 23, 2010 3:27 PM

You don't end up with bits but with mathematical laws. The universe itself is a kind of fractal.

Didn't Charles Seife already propose this concept in his 2006 book DECODING THE UNIVERSE - How the new science of information is explaining everything in the cosmos from our brains to black holes???

William Nelson
on March 23, 2010 5:18 PM

The "universe as quantum computer" idea is among the most vapid ever to emerge in the field of physics. It is the same as saying "the universe obeys quantum mechanics".

William Nelson
on March 23, 2010 6:02 PM

And I would like to add that any "physicist" who uses the phrase
"the well-known figure for how many bits of information which can be contained in the universe" is not deserving of the name.
There is absolutely no way that any such quantity can be calculated at the present time, or even estimated, or even convincingly argued to be finite.

William H Stoddard
on March 23, 2010 10:53 PM

The link between information and economics is not actually a novelty on the economics side. The marginalist approach to value, in which value is based on scarcity (that is, on the improbability of obtaining a good), which dominated 20th century economics, is clearly congruent with information theory. And the school of thought that most consistently held to marginalism, the Austrian economists, gave us such other informational insights as von Mises' proof of the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism (discussed more recently in Steele's From Marx to Mises, an admirably lucid study of economic thought). I think it could fairly be said that the great revolution in economics was the move from the labor theory of value (congruent with the 19th century focus on energy) to the marginal theory (congruent with the 20th century focus on information).

none
on March 23, 2010 11:05 PM

It's all "Bubbles" not bits ;)

JeremyR
on March 24, 2010 12:05 AM

This sounds silly, but I would not be all surprised if we are not simply The Sims 110 or something like that.

M. Report
on March 24, 2010 3:37 AM

Frederick W. Kantor 'Information Mechanics'
Wiley-Interscience, 1977

Introduces the concept of Conservation of Information, and proceeds
to derive _almost_ the same universe described by QM et. al.

FWK made some falsifiable predictions about the masses of
particles not yet measured when he wrote his book; Surely some
of these have been produced by now ?

Brian H
on March 24, 2010 7:20 AM

No, the universe is not "made of" information, but it probably thinks you think it is.

bobbymike
on March 24, 2010 12:12 PM

I have not read the book but plan on getting it soon. I have theorized for years that "photons" or "light" are the memory storage bits of the visual Universe recording all events since the beginnings of time. It flows from thinking about whether time travel is physically possible (actual real objects moving back in time) and concluding no. I call it my "flip card model of the Universe"

mux
on March 25, 2010 12:43 AM

blah blah blah... So what the hell else is new....Unwitting rediscovery is the sincerest form of flattery... in other words his not telling us anything new... Waste of paper

So we have had 10^120 bits in 1013 years or 1 bit per 10^-100 seconds. Is this the fundamental unit of quantised time? If the Universal Computer is running at this speed there would presumably be no need for events to take place simultaneously. In previous New Scientists the Universe is described as a holographic projection of a two dimensional surface. The items on this surface are presumably described by a computer programme running at 10^100 bits per second (in a similar way to how images are formed on computer screens) and then projected holographically.

Or is that just the way it seems to us?

R. Dicken
on April 17, 2010 6:17 PM

I support the view that the universe is a quantum computer, though I've not yet read the book. However, when you take into account the Structural and Transactional Analysis theories proposed by Eric Berne, Steiner and the Harris's in the area of psycotherapy this does in fact support the view proposed by Garret Lisi; that the universe is in effect pure maths based around an expanding 'coral' structure in the shape of the gosset 4(21) polytope in the E8 Lie group. Lisi's scalar fields have a very interesting shape in this respect. I think the LHC will find evidence supporting his thesis and you may find viewing his TED presentation enlightening.

Peppiatt96
on June 4, 2010 12:27 AM

@Dave Holtum
How do you know simultanious events/motions even exist? If the universe run at this speed, you can't begin to understand the speed events happen, which may not be simultaniously. 'Simultanious' events may not exist, but instead certain individual/groups of motions, happening at a speed not comprehendable by the human mind.